Expanding My Awareness Of How APIs Are Being Used At The Network Level

18 Aug 2016

I work as hard as I can to understand every sector being opened up using web APIs, and the network level is one that I need to push my awareness of, partially because I find it interesting, but mostly because of the impact it can have on every other aspect of how the Internet works (or doesn't).

To get started I went over to Cisco Devnet, and took a look at their pxGrid solution, which is a "multivendor, cross-platform network system that pulls together different parts of an IT infrastructure such as security monitoring and detection systems, network policy platforms, asset and configuration management, identity and access management platforms", which provides "you with an API that will open up a unified framework that will enable you to integrate to pxGrid once, then share context with any other platform that supports pxGrid".

I'd categorize pxGrid as network API aggregator in my world, providing a single, seamless API to access resources at the network level. Of course, all the network endpoints have to speak pxGrid, but the platform provides me with an introductory blueprint for how web APIs are being applied to network resources, for device configuration and management, as well as identity and security services. I'm not a network professional, but I do know that Cisco devices are pretty ubiquitous, and with the company historically having over 50% market share, I'm betting it is a good place to kick off my learning.